USA Law and Practice Contributed by: Jeff McAndrews, Megan Bouchier and Peter Gardner, FGS Global
ness operations, or how long it takes stock price to recover. • Public sentiment – leveraging field research to determine how key stakeholders like inves - tors, consumers and potential employees now perceive the organisation. • Internal sentiment – ability to retain current employees and employee morale. • Legal and regulatory compliance – whether the company was knowledgeable on and equipped to address all relevant legal and regulatory requirements. Taking the time to assess these measures and identify missteps or oversights helps bolster cri- sis strategies for the future and safeguard any successes in the long term. 4. Managing and Preventing Crises 4.1 Identifying a Crisis The Importance of a Strong Response Framework How quickly a company can identify a crisis and its implications depends on how prepared they are. An organisation that has taken the time to build a strong foundation for monitoring, assess- ing and escalating emerging or crises issues will be able to respond to and mitigate them more rapidly than one that first has to define roles, identify resource gaps and create a strategy. Many companies will develop an internal frame- work by which to identify and assess a crisis. Typically, this contains a group of questions or a checklist that aim to uncover: • how broad is the potential reach; • what kind of risk will it introduce to stakehold- ers; • what or who is driving the situation;
• what impacts might this have on operations; • how quickly can this be addressed; • are there legal or regulatory implications; • are extra resources required; and • is the safety of an organisation’s core con- stituents threatened. The first step in any crisis situation would be to use these questions to understand the reach and impact of the situation. Once that has been decided, there should be yet another standard framework that dictates the escalation process and immediate next steps in terms of whom to involve, how to convene these resources and what to prioritise. 4.2 Planning Building and Training on Crisis Plans The most well-prepared companies have pre- set business continuity, cyber-incident and crisis communications response plans in place. These plans will outline guiding principles, clear step- by-step action plans and proposed messaging/ materials that can then easily be implemented when a crisis strikes. So long as these plans are properly developed and trained on, they give crisis groups a head start and help guide them through the key decision-making processes required during a crisis. Common elements of a crisis plan include: • an overview of what constitutes a crisis, along with key principles, best practices, and typi- cal errors; • procedures for spotting and escalating poten- tial issues early, including tracking social and digital media; • clear definitions of the crisis team’s roles and responsibilities, including how and where crisis communications fit in;
157 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook